


An Infinite Game

by izayoi_no_mikoto



Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: (it's Sai), Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, Getting Together, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Jealousy, Kissing, M/M, Pining, Post-Canon, of the angry oblivious sort, sudden realization of feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-06-30 01:40:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19842910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/izayoi_no_mikoto/pseuds/izayoi_no_mikoto
Summary: Shindou Hikaru is the reason Akira plays Go.ItkillsAkira to know the reverse is not also true.





	An Infinite Game

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chiiyo86](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiiyo86/gifts).



Akira and his father shared heavy silences and oblique intimations, but in truth, they didn't really talk about Sai, not anymore.

They used to, way back when. Back before Akira was a professional, back when Touya Kouyou was still Touya Meijin. Back when it seemed like Sai was poised to take the Go world by storm, back when Akira knew too little and suspected even less. They'd talked about Sai back then. But now Touya Meijin was just Touya Kouyou, and Akira still didn't know everything but at least knew enough to suspect plenty, and they'd reached a state of equilibrium, a silent understanding, an unspoken agreement to leave the past in the past.

Akira broke that agreement once, and only once.

They were half an hour into a game one weekend, and already Akira was losing, badly. He was distracted. His play was sloppy. His father's white stones controlled an embarrassing percentage of the upper left corner, and the right side wasn't looking much better. Across from him, his father sat and gazed at him with an expression of stone. Akira did not look back, but just stared at the goban, his eyebrows pinched together, his mind churning and coming up blank. Then he exhaled, slowly, and closed his eyes. "I surrender," he said.

His father didn't even blink. "This is not your game," he commented, his tone flat.

Akira didn't wince, didn't even lift up his head, but his hands clenched into fists in his lap.

His father started gathering the stones; it wasn't even a game worth analyzing. "You're distracted." It was not a question.

Akira hesitated. Then, reluctantly, he said, "It's May 2nd."

"Ah." No further response; his father understood.

Akira took a deep breath. At last, the tension in his shoulders slipped away. He reached forward to start gathering up his black stones. "Shindou's leave of absence starts tomorrow," he said, completely unnecessarily. His father knew. Everyone knew. Surely it wasn't actually possible for the entire Go world to know about Shindou and May 5th, but it certainly seemed to be the case most of the time.

His father made a vague noise, a sign he was listening. He said nothing.

"I played him today," Akira said sourly. "He was distracted. It was a terrible game."

"I'm sure," his father replied. If Akira didn't know better, he would have said it was amusement in his father's voice.

"I just--I know it's some personal thing, but--it's not--" Akira broke off there. He swept a handful of black stones into his goke with a rattle, more violently than was strictly necessary. He glared at the stones, gleaming and perfectly smooth. He wasn't taking it personally, he _wasn't_ , but--

"I think it has to do with Sai," Akira blurted.

He looked up. His father wore a difficult expression, one he couldn't interpret.

Akira swallowed. "I think that's what May 5th is about," he said. "I think it's about Sai."

"What about Sai?" his father asked. It was a telling question; it assumed as a foundational fact that Sai had something to do with Shindou. They both knew it was true, or at least, they suspected it with enough certainty that it was, to them, as good as true.

Akira didn't reply. There was nothing he could say, not really. He had no proof, nothing concrete, nothing but conjecture and hints that Shindou had dropped over the years. Circumstantial evidence, nothing more, and it was too complicated, too messy, too _much_. Too much, and yet too little all the same. _I think Sai taught Shindou how to play Go_ , he thought. _I think Sai is Shindou_ , he thought. _I think Sai **was** Shindou_, he thought. It was a contradictory mess in his own mind, and those suspicions could not all simultaneously be true, but they shared a space in his brain nevertheless.

Whatever it was, he was sure that Sai had something to do with it, something to do with Shindou's catastrophic months-long disappearance during his first year as a pro, something to do with the reason why Shindou went dark every year around May 5th. Something to do with why Shindou could sit down at the goban earlier today and not see Akira sitting right in front of him.

Shindou frustrated and irked and enraged Akira on a daily basis. But _this--_ Akira hated this most of all.

* * *

The truth was this: Akira and Shindou shared a bond that was unparalleled in their generation of Go, and perhaps unparalleled by anyone alive in Go today.

Already, their relationship was the stuff of legend. Akira didn't come up with that himself--a reporter from Go Weekly said it while interviewing him after one of their official matches, during the round robins of the Kisei Tournament. "Your rivalry with Shindou Hikaru is already the stuff of legend," she'd said, her hair perfectly coifed and her eyes glinting. "What is it like--"

And she'd completed that sentence, surely-- _what is it like to be the future of Go_ , or _what is it like to play your rival_ , or maybe _what is it like to finally have someone who can legitimately threaten your ascendancy--_ but whatever it was, Akira didn't hear it, because his thoughts had tripped up on what she'd already said: _Your rivalry with Shindou Hikaru_.

For some reason, it caught him off guard. There was no reason it should have; he'd heard it before, a dozen times, a hundred times. _Your rivalry with Shindou Hikaru_. And it was true, of course; he viewed Shindou as a rival, his only _true_ rival. There was no one else it could be. The only person who was arguably more important in Akira's Go life was Touya Kouyou, and that was because his father was the one to introduce him to Go. But the more Akira played, the more convinced he was that he would have discovered Go even without his father, but he never would have learned the _meaning_ of Go without Shindou. The more Akira played, the more he felt--in the callus on his fingertip, in the marrow of his bones, in every nerve of his body and every breath that filled his lungs--that his father was coincidence, but Shindou was fate. His father had taught him Go, but that was his past. Shindou was his future--his competition, his goal, his barometer of success. His rival.

But for some reason, it didn't seem right. It didn't seem _enough_. Shindou was his rival, yes, but that one tiny word didn't do justice to him, to their relationship, to their Go, to _anything_.

 _Huh_ , Akira thought, _strange_ , but he had interview questions to answer, and by the time he emerged from the Japan Go Association, he'd forgotten about it entirely.

* * *

Shindou returned from his leave of absence with a wan face and a darkness in his eyes, but when he sat down at the goban across from Akira with his fan clenched in hand, his Go was fierce and unrelenting. Akira allowed himself a spare moment of relief, _he's back he's himself he's back_ , but only a moment, because Shindou's Go was so overpowering that every single stone was a struggle to avoid being crushed beneath the onslaught.

In the end, Akira surrendered. Shindou's proper, ramrod-straight posture went slack, and he sat back in a sprawl, grinning widely. "Dang, Touya," he said, "you _sucked_."

Akira glared at him, prickling with indignation. _Shows what I get for worrying about you_ , he thought. "Like you have any room to talk," he snapped. "You were even worse last time."

Even as the words came out of his mouth, Akira knew it was a mistake. _Abort_ , his brain ordered, _abort abort abort_ , but it was too late; the words were out, hanging in the air, too late to take them back, too late.

There were a few basic rules for interaction with Shindou: Play Go seriously, never show weakness, give as good as you get. Do not mention Sai. Do not bring up May 5th.

Akira had just violated the last rule, and he was fairly certain that meant he'd also violated the previous rule too, and if he hadn't been sure before, the way Shindou's expression drained of goodwill and turned to stone was confirmation.

Shindou sprang to his feet, slamming his hands down on the table. "Touya," he snarled, his eyes narrowing, and this wasn't their usual spats over Go, not their usual verbal tussle over this _kakari_ or that _keima_. Shindou was really, genuinely _angry_.

Akira did not backpedal, and did not apologize. He didn't _want_ to apologize, and more than that, he knew Shindou didn't want to hear it. Apologies rarely occurred between them; they argued in every way possible except for their fists, but softer things, vulnerable things, they communicated only via stones on the goban.

So instead of apologizing, Akira sat himself back down with a huff and grabbed a handful of stones from his goke. " _Nigiri_ ," he said shortly, holding out his clenched fist.

Shindou glared at him, eyes narrowed, but then he sighed and plopped back down himself, much less gracefully. He petulantly slammed two stones on the goban. Even.

Akira dropped the handful of stones on the goban and counted them out, his fingers moving with a calm and grace he did not feel. Even. He swept the stones back into his goke.

Shindou didn't even bother with an obligatory "Let's have a good match"; he just plunged a hand into his goke and slammed a stone down. Then he looked up, his eyes ablaze, his jaw set.

Akira stared back for a long, long moment, refusing to flinch away from that glare. Then he picked up a stone between two fingers and played it, forcefully, with a loud clack. _I'm not backing down_ , he thought, shooting Shindou a sharp look. _I'll give you the match you want. I'll play you until you never look anywhere else.  
_

He didn't say it, didn't say a word. But he didn't have to. He never did, not when it came to Go. Not when it came to Shindou.

Shindou responded with a move of his own. The match quickly descended into a brawl, Akira seizing control of the lower left corner, Shindou wresting away a significant chunk of territory in the upper right. Silence, except for the clatter of stones on wood and the murmurs of onlookers who had gathered to watch their match unfold. It was faster than their usual matches, a violent edge to their play. Shindou rampaged through a weak point in Akira's defenses; Akira countered with a risky gamble, more Shindou's style than anything, that killed the lower left corner. Back and forth, stones coming off the board, spindling chains of black and white spreading out over the wood, and then Shindou made a play that made Akira's breath hitch, made him think--

_\--Sai._

He was used to it by now, _should_ have been used to it. Used to Shindou constantly breaking the mold, used to these unexpected moves that screamed of someone else. Because no matter how Shindou grew and developed, no matter how his Go shifted and evolved, there would always be a hint of that something else in his play, something that Akira had always thought of as _Sai_.

Akira gritted his teeth, glaring at Shindou's latest move. _Sai_. Something that could have come straight out of a kifu from one of those infamous net Go matches. _Sai_. The part of Shindou that had dazzled him, stunned him, awed him, compelled him, driven him to strive for ever more dizzying heights. _Sai_.

Someone else was there, lurking at the very core of Shindou's Go. Akira couldn't bring himself to hate it, not when he knew full well it was what had brought them together in the first place. But part of him wished he could loathe it, wished he could rip it out of Shindou, wished he could wipe the slate clean. Because they all had someone else in their Go, every single player, and Akira was no exception. But Akira knew who lay at the very heart of his Go, its foundation, its structure, its fuel, its purpose, and he knew that it was _Sai_ in Shindou's Go, and--

\--and it was just one more way in which he and Shindou were unequal. Just one more way he had always been chasing Shindou, and always would be.

* * *

In the end, Akira lost by half a _moku_.

Shindou sat back in his chair, slouching now that the match was over. The fire had faded from his gaze, and now he studied the goban with his regular intensity, his eyes darting to one part of the board to another and yet another. "That's more like it," he said, sounding almost cheerful. He set his fan down on the tabletop and pointed to one stone, where Akira had made his risky move. "What were you _thinking_ here?" He sounded simultaneously disgusted and impressed.

"I was thinking I had to take you by surprise," Akira replied. "I figured you'd respond here with _tobi_ , and then if I played _hane_ you'd have to go with _narabi_ \--"

"And then a couple of moves later, you have your two eyes, and I'm dead in that corner." Shindou blew his breath out in a frustrated huff, ruffling his bleached bangs. "But I didn't have to go with _tobi_ there. If I'd--"

"You were going to play _tobi_ ," Akira said, cutting him off. "I know how you play, Shindou. I know your Go."

Shindou drew up in surprise. For a few seconds, he just looked at Akira, blinking. "Yeah," he said at last, his voice distant. "Yeah, I guess you do."

And what was _that_ supposed to mean?

Akira stared at him with narrowed eyes, but Shindou was immersed in his post-game analysis once again. Akira let out a low, slow sigh, but he let it go.

Sometimes, it was just easier to give up on understanding Shindou Hikaru.

They spent another half-hour discussing the match, discussing where Akira could have eked out one more moku in his territory and seized a win. Halfway through an argument over the merits of Akira's decision to play a _tsukiatari_ , though, Shindou glanced at the clock on the wall behind the front desk and leapt to his feet with a yelp. "Shoot, this late already? I have to get home for dinner! We'll finish this later, Touya!" And he snagged his jacket off the back of the chair, grabbed his backpack from where Ichikawa had held it behind the counter, and was out the door without another word.

Left behind, half out of his seat, Akira stared at the door as it swung closed. His mouth was open, but the words remained unspoken; his hand was outstretched, but it reached for something that was no longer there.

The old men who had been watching their match cleared off, returning to their own games.

After too long, Akira lowered his hand, sat back down, swallowed. He leaned his elbows heavily on the table, staring blankly at the goban. Then he pressed his forehead against his clasped hands and squeezed his eyes shut, something smoldering and curdling uncomfortably in his gut.

They'd had a solid match. They'd both played well. It had gone down to the wire. They'd spent time afterward arguing about the finer aspects of Go strategy, with occasional descents into shouts and insults. Normal. That was their normal, and it should have been enough.

It was almost like nothing had happened, and that should have been enough, but it _wasn't_. Instead, Akira sat there staring in front of the goban, his hands clenched into fists so tightly that he could feel his fingernails digging into his palms, his teeth grinding so hard his jaw ached. Because it _was_ normal, and it was normal because Shindou had wanted it to be. Shindou had wanted to slip back into their normal cycle, bypass the real argument, neatly avoid the subject. Because Shindou never wanted to talk about May 5th or Sai, and so Akira was left hanging, no resolution, no closure, nothing but the toxin of questions he'd been swallowing down for years and the stinging sense that he was not to Shindou what Shindou was to him.

And it _ate_ at him. He knew that May 5th was important to Shindou, knew that _Sai_ was important to Shindou. Important enough to prioritize over almost everything else. But how could it be more important than Go? How could it be more important than Go _with Akira_?

Akira slammed one fist into the table, making the stones on the goban rattle. _What is it that's so important to you?_ he thought, the doubt poisonous and desperate. _What's more important than Go? What's more important than--_

His mind cut off there, unable to finish the thought. It left a bitter taste in his mouth.

* * *

By this point, Akira had played hundreds of matches with Shindou.

Their first match, a bloodbath, a game of _shidou-go_ led by a master who indulgently let him win only by _komi_. Their second, a meeting of two Go clubs, Shindou's play inexplicable, the match enraging. Their third, two years and four months later, something that Akira had thirsted for, hungered for, waited a seeming eternity for. Since then, a good handful of official matches and countless more friendlies, each one different, each one invaluable.

Akira _lived_ for this. He had his professional goals, of course, some longer-term than others--make 7-dan by the end of the year, take down Ogata in an official match, win the Meijin title--but in all honesty, they paled in the face of the blinding intensity that was Shindou Hikaru. Akira played Go because he couldn't imagine doing anything else with his life, but the longer he played and the higher he rose in the rankings, the less it had to do with Go and the more it had to do with Shindou.

Akira told himself that he played Go because he couldn't imagine any other sort of life for himself. But he knew that in reality, he just couldn't imagine a life where he didn't play Go _with Shindou_.

* * *

Akira went home, had dinner with his parents, pulled out a book of _tsumego_ problems to keep himself busy. But his foul mood remained, to the point where he spent so long stewing in the bath, his knees drawn up to his nose and his face fixed in a scowl, that his mother knocked on the door and called out, "Akira-san? Don't you have an early morning tomorrow?"

Akira closed his eyes and groaned into his knees. "I'm getting out now," he said, just loud enough to be heard, and he hauled himself out of the bath, dried off, tossed the towel in the hamper, and pulled on his pajamas.

Then he stopped and looked at himself in the mirror, staring at his own reflection. _This time_ , he told himself, meeting his own eyes. His stare was sharp and unrelenting; he was the very picture of determination. _This time, I'm getting to the bottom of this._

He'd ask Shindou, straight out. He'd get some sort of answer about what Shindou did every May 5th, and what it had to do with Sai, or at least who Sai was. He'd get to the bottom of this. He'd figure out what Shindou was looking at, what he saw when he played Go. What Shindou's Go really was.

But the next time they saw each other was at the Japan Go Association, and they both had matches with other people. Akira knew better than to have _that_ conversation before an official match--Shindou would never forgive him if either of them played poorly because of something like that. He wouldn't forgive himself, either. But he could sense the very instant Shindou walked into the room, and he immediately looked over, his eyes fixating on Shindou unerringly.

Shindou stared back at him, and for a moment, the rest of the world fell away. Then Shindou nodded, and Akira inclined his head in return, and the world came back into focus.

Three hours in the morning. An hour break for lunch. Akira snuck a peek at Shindou's goban; Shindou was playing against a freshly minted 2-dan named Machida, who was putting up an admirable fight but was losing nevertheless. _Half an hour,_ Akira thought, and swallowed down the annoyance that ensued. At this rate, Shindou would be done with his match and out of the building before Akira even got a sniff at _yose_. Then he shook his head at himself; if he had time to be assessing Shindou's game, he was better off thinking about his own opponent.

After the lunch break, Akira sat back down at the goban to continue his match against 5-dan Nishii, a woman with a bob haircut and a perpetually pinched expression. She was a conservative, solid player, the type who played every life-or-death situation exactly as it was drawn out in a _tsumego_ handbook, and while there was nothing intimidating or threatening in her game, neither did she make thoughtless mistakes. Akira eked out territory bit by bit, killing this corner, forcing a _sek_ _i_ of mutual life in that tricky spot. Eventually, Nishii paused, her eyes darting this way and that, and then she lowered her hand into her lap and bowed her head. "I surrender," she murmured.

Without missing a beat, Akira returned her bow. "Thank you for the match," he said, and then he glanced up and to the left, where Shindou had been.

The goban was empty. Shindou was already gone.

* * *

And then Akira spent a day teaching, the bread and butter of the professional Go player's livelihood. And then he was in the preliminaries for the Tengen. And then Shindou ditched their regular meetup at their regular Go salon for unspecified personal business, leaving Akira to play _shidou-go_ with old men who stood in awe of his mastery.

And as the days slipped by, Akira's upswell of emotion cooled and subsided. The next time they actually saw each other face-to-face, Shindou passed over the pleasantries of "hello" and "how are you" and greeted Akira by slamming the latest issue of Go Weekly down on the goban, the cover folded back to show the kifu of the Match of the Week. "Touya!" he exclaimed, his eyes alight. "Your match with Ashiwara!" And he jabbed one finger at the kifu.

Akira looked down at the magazine. "Yes, that was my match with Ashiwara," he said calmly. "What about it?"

And Shindou shoved the magazine aside, grabbed both goke, and started placing stones, replicating the match. He didn't even glance at the kifu, twenty stones, forty, seventy, and Akira could never, _ever_ understand how anyone could underestimate Shindou, because no one could just _memorize_ an entire match play for play without having an intimate understanding of the game, and Shindou hadn't even been the one to play it--

"Here!" Shindou declared, slamming down the eighty-first stone. "Why did you play this here? It's completely uncharacteristic of you--"

 _Because it's the kind of move you would have played_ , Akira thought, _and when I don't know what to do, I try to think of what you would do,_ _and you're in my Go, I can't play without you--_

"Because I needed something unexpected," Akira said. "I needed to catch him off guard."

Shindou grinned at him, bright and beaming, as though he'd heard what Akira had not said. "Well, it looked like it worked!" he said.

And Akira swallowed it down, _Who is Sai, where were you on May 5th, why don't you play Go for me the way I play Go for you_ \--chewed it up, gulped it down, let it roil like nausea in his gut. Because he wanted to know, was _desperate_ to know, but there were rules when it came to interacting with Shindou, and amongst them were _do not ask about May 5th_ and _do not ask about Sai_ , and he would adhere to those rules for the rest of his life if it meant that Shindou would keep coming to him, sometimes combative, sometimes grudgingly respectful, but always pushing him higher, higher, higher--

So he swallowed it down and watched Shindou place the stones, with the distinctive _clack clack clack_ he heard even in his dreams.

* * *

It was a week or two later when Akira showed up at the Go salon to find Shindou waiting for him not in front of the goban, goke at the ready, but instead standing in the entrance, chatting it up with Ichikawa and a couple of patrons who looked on as though hopeful that some of Shindou's Go brilliance might rub off on them by mere proximity. When Akira stepped over the threshhold, though, Shindou turned to him like a flower turning toward the sun and shouted, "Touya! You're late!"

"I'm not _late_ ," Akira snapped. "You're early. Also, why are you _early_?"

Shindou bounded over to him, his previous conversation partners forgotten. "So I recently moved into my own place," he said in a rush, his eyes alight. "My own apartment. But it's not really home until I play a good game of Go there."

Akira's eyebrows went up. They didn't go over to each other's places to play Go, not really. Well, he was pretty sure that Shindou had been to his house once or twice, but that was about Akira's father, not Akira. It wasn't the same thing.

But Shindou wanted to christen his apartment by playing Go, by playing Go _with Akira_ , and Akira wasn't about to turn down that opportunity. He didn't even say anything, because he didn't need to. He just nodded once, firmly.

Shindou's eyes were gleaming. "Awesome," he said. "Let's go."

Akira fell into step beside him and let him lead the way. "Is that where you've been?" he asked as they took the stairs. "Moving into your new apartment?"

"Yeah." Shindou grimaced. "I didn't realize how much of a hassle it all was. The contract, the key money, dealing with the utilities, buying furniture and appliances and everything--what a pain."

Akira had no frame of reference; he still lived at home with his parents, at least when his parents were home. "I suppose," he said.

"And it's not like I need much," Shindou continued, shoving his hands into his pockets. "It's just a one-room apartment, it's not like it's big enough for a ton of furniture or anything. But it was still a lot of work."

"But you have a goban," Akira said. It was half question, half demand.

Shindou shot him a dirty look, as though insulted. "Who do you think I am? I have priorities, you know."

Shindou's apartment ended up being a short train ride away. It was in a new-looking apartment building, on the fourth floor. Akira stepped inside with an obligatory "pardon the intrusion" and slipped off his shoes, then took a look around. It was a pretty nice apartment, at least for a twenty-year-old who'd never graduated from high school. It was small, but it had a separate bath and toilet, and the kitchenette had at least ten centimeters of countertop that would probably never get used, and the bedroom had just enough space for a twin-size bed (unmade, blanket rumpled, pillow shoved to the corner) and a goban with two zabuton on either side to sit on.

Akira's eyes zeroed in on the goban. Sitting on the edge was Shindou's trademark fan, as though marking its owner's proper place.

Akira sat down at the other side.

Shindou sloughed off his backpack into the corner and sat down much less gracefully, plopping down cross-legged with a huff. He grabbed his fan, opened it, snapped it shut. "Sorry, goke are over there," he said. "Can you grab them?"

Akira looked over his shoulder. Sitting on the shelf behind him were two goke, pale and shining like new. He picked them up and handed one over to Shindou. "New goban?" he asked.

Shindou paused, his hand frozen on the lid of the goke. His eyes went unfocused, as though he were thinking about something far away. Then he shook his head. "Old goban," he corrected. "I got it from my grandfather."

Akira made a vague noise of acknowledgment. "Is he the one who introduced you to Go?"

Shindou hesitated. "Technically, I suppose," he said at last, popping the lid off his goke. "But he didn't really teach me. And he's not the reason I play Go."

The rush of bitterness was unexpected but all too familiar. _And I'm not the reason you play Go, either_. The very thought tasted sour, but Akira swallowed it down. " _Nigiri_?" he suggested.

Shindou stuck his hand into his goke for a handful of stones. "This goban is actually pretty special to me," he said, as Akira placed a single stone on the board. He lapsed into silence for a moment, just long enough to count out the stones he'd pulled for the _nigiri_. Odd. They each swept their stones back into their goke, and then Shindou continued, "I've never actually played anyone on this goban before. I had another one I used before this, but when I got my own apartment, I asked my grandfather if I could have this one." He paused. "It's important to me."

"Well, then, we'd better give it a good game," Akira replied.

Shindou's expression split into a sharp grin, almost predatory. "You're on, Touya," he said. A promise.

Akira felt his pulse pick up. He played his first piece, then looked straight into Shindou's eyes. A challenge.

For the greater part of an hour, the game continued apace, silent except for the sound of stones hitting the _kaya_ wood. Shindou was on his game today--fast decisions, unflinching moves, gobbling up territory in leaps and bounds. But Akira was giving as good as he got--cutting through Shindou's line, outflanking him, destroying eyes before they could be made. It was the kind of Go that made Akira's vision narrow to nothing but the goban, the universe nothing but circles of black and white. The kind of Go that made his heart thrill and his spine tingle.

Then, suddenly, he realized that Shindou had stopped.

Akira glanced up, his brow knitting. Shindou was staring at the goban, a stone clenched at the ready between two fingertips, his hand hovering in the air. At last, he lowered the stone and slid it into place. But he did not take his hand away.

"Touya," he said, looking up, "why do you play Go?"

Akira stiffened. They didn't usually talk _during_ a match, even a friendly one. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Go," Shindou said. "Why do you play Go?"

It was such an unexpected question that even hearing it twice, Akira couldn't parse it. _Why do I play Go_? He shook his head. "Why do _you_ play Go?" he countered.

Shindou pulled his hand away, slowly. He was still looking Akira in the eye, but for a long moment, his gaze was faraway. Then he blinked, rapidly, and drew himself upright out of his slouch, as though he was only now considering the question for the first time. "Why do I play Go?" he echoed, and then his eyes dropped, away from Akira. "To find the Hand of God," he said at last, his voice uncommonly soft, and his eyes--

His eyes slid from the goban onto the paper fan.

Akira's jaw clenched. He could hear his blood pounding in his ears. He knew that look, knew it well, and he _hated_ it. _I play Go because of you_ , he thought savagely. _My Go is always about you. Why isn't it the same for you? Why aren't **I** the one in your Go? Why don't you play Go for **me**? Why--_

"Shindou," he growled, but he couldn't say anything else, couldn't force any other words past the knot of outrage in his throat. So he just glared, his entire body shaking with pent-up energy, until finally, he snapped.

And there was no planning, no conscious thought, nothing. Nothing but the driving need to do something, _anything_ , because for too long Shindou had been looking past him, looking through him, looking to something _beyond_ him, and Akira refused to be left behind. Because Akira had _always_ chased after Shindou, always had and always would, because he'd promised himself he would pursue Shindou until he caught up, that one day he'd _make_ Shindou look at him and _see_ him--

And so he flung himself over the goban and fisted one hand in Shindou's t-shirt and ignored the startled yelp and yanked him forward--

And the storm inside his mind went suddenly, blissfully quiet.

 _Oh_ , he thought. It was a gemstone dropping into a crystal-clear ocean, sinking into the depths without a sound. Equilibrium, balance, peace. The way it was meant to be. _This is what I've been waiting for._

His goke was tipped over, spilling stones across the floor. Shindou's fan sat beside the goban, forgotten. Shindou's lips were slack against his own, unmoving and parted slightly in shock.

He was kissing Shindou.

Akira inhaled sharply, his eyes snapping open.

_He was kissing Shindou._

Akira jerked himself back, his breathing ragged, his face flushing hot. There was a ringing in his ears, distant and echoing. His head spun. His chest heaved as he panted.

 _What_ , he thought, and at the same time, _Oh_ , _I understand, now._

_It was never just about Go._

Shindou stared back at him with wide, wide eyes, gaping like a fish, his expression stunned. "Touya," he said blankly, almost breathless, and then he blinked. "Oh _._ "

Akira glared at him, humiliation burning like fury in his gut. "What?" he demanded, lashing out on instinct.

But Shindou didn't rise to the challenge, didn't take the bait. He just stared at Akira. "Oh," he said, " _oh_ ," like suddenly he knew _everything_ , as full of awe as if the world had suddenly opened up in front of him. "Yeah, I can get on board with this."

"What," Akira repeated, but Shindou was already reaching out, and he grabbed Akira's wrist and yanked him forward, and Akira yelped and nearly toppled onto the goban, but he didn't make another sound because Shindou leaned forward and--

And this time, Shindou was kissing _him_.

Akira's breath caught, his heart fluttering like a hummingbird. But his body reacted of its own volition--his eyes slipping shut, his hand sliding up to curl around Shindou's jaw. There was nothing but quiet, intense sensation--Shindou's fingers slipping through his hair to cradle his head, Shindou's warm mouth on his. Shindou.

At last their lips parted, barely a centimeter. Reluctantly, Akira's eyes fluttered open. Shindou gazed at him, almost equally breathless, searching Akira's eyes as though he didn't dare look away.

"It's you," Akira gasped. "I play Go because of you. I always have. Ever since the first time I met you, you've been the reason I play Go."

Shindou's eyes went wide again, and his cheeks tinged pink. But then he smiled, wide and genuine and with that bit of mischievousness that made Akira's heart stutter because it always presaged some bold, daring move on the goban. "Good," he said, and Akira's heart trilled. _Good_.

"Good?" Akira asked, light-headed.

"Well, I don't plan to find the Hand of God with anyone else," Shindou replied.

And that--that made Akira's head spin even more dizzingly, like he was floating, like he'd just discovered the secret of Go. Because Shindou played Go to find the Hand of God, and he wanted to find the Hand of God with _Akira_ \--

Akira let out a breathless laugh. "Let's play," he said. "For real. Let's play the best game of Go anyone's ever seen."

Shindou grinned even wider. "You're on," he said, and he dragged Akira in again, and--

Well, maybe Go could wait, just this once.

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from a quote by James P. Carse: "A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play."
> 
> Japanese culture notes: Your standard bathroom in a Japanese home will have the bath and the toilet in separate rooms; however, cheap studio apartments may have them in the same room, as in the West. A [zabuton](https://im.belluna.jp/interior/ph/O/3062/1006853062/DLARGE.JPG) is a type of cushion used when sitting on the floor.
> 
> To chiiyo86: I hope you enjoy all the delicious pining and have an excellent Pining Exchange!


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